Over 13,000 camels to join beauty pageantry

By

Staff

PublishedSaturday, December 17, 2011

More than 13,000 camels from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries will be herded inside a massive well-built enclosure in the Kingdom for the region’s largest camel beauty contest, starting on Sunday.

Organisers said 13,678 male and female Arabian camels will take part in the event, which will attract 280 camel owners from Saudi Arabia, 22 from Kuwait, 17 from Qatar and five from the UAE.

The contest will be held in North Saudi Arabia and will last 31 days, during which three winners will be picked by a committee comprising prominent camel experts.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has around 870,000 camels while there are nearly 380,000 camels in the UAE and 125,000 in Oman. The camel wealth is much smaller in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.